Florida Blue Key at UF | October 29-31, 2021 Florida Blue Key cordially invites you and your team to join us at our thirty-seventh annual Florida Blue Key Speech & Debate Tournament. This year’s tournament will be held VIRTUALLY Friday, October 29-through Sunday, October 31, 2021.
*IMPORTANT NOTES*
● All speech events will be live online this year.
● Speech competitors will be allowed to enter up to two events.
● Unfortunately, we will not be accepting independent entries for this year’s tournament. All entries must be registered with a school.
● An updated schedule of the tournament, as well as a speech submission timeline, will be posted soon on Tabroom.
● The speech and debate team reserve the right to make any changes to entries, divisions, and other tournaments related information
● We are excited to announce that Public Forum (All Divisions) will debate the 2021 NSDA November/December topic and Lincoln Douglas (All Divisions) will debate the 2021 NSDA November/December Topic.
JUDGES: *Note*: No school will be able to hire out their full obligation in a category. Due to the virtual format this year, schools should provide a minimum of 1 judge in each category and then hire additional judges they may need.
TOURNAMENT EVENTS: Our tournament will feature varsity competition in Lincoln Douglas Debate, Public Forum Debate, Congressional Debate, Dramatic Interpretation, Humorous Interpretation, Informative Speaking, Mixed Extemporaneous Speaking, Program Oral Interpretation, Duo Interpretation and Original Oratory and novice competition in Lincoln Douglas Debate, and Public Forum Debate. All events follow the NSDA (National Speech and Debate Association) rules and regulations.
WAITLIST: All entries will be placed on a waitlist to start with waves of clearing to be followed. The first wave of clearing will start on September 15th. Due to the online format this year, we are looking forward to extending opportunities for schools to join us for the first time. That said, FBK has schools that have supported our tournament for many years and our first obligation is to provide the same opportunities we always do. These schools will be given preference when we are clearing entries from the waitlist.
JUDGE REQUIREMENTS & ACCOUNTS: All schools should provide 1 judge for every 2 Public Forum Debate entries, 3 rounds of judging per ld entry, and 1 judge for every 4 Speech and/or Congress entries. Hired judges will be extremely limited and must be notified beforehand. All judges (Speech, Congress, and Debate) must have a valid Tabroom account established for online ballots. All events will use online ballots at the tournament.
ONLINE ADAPTATION: The Florida Blue Key Speech and Debate Tournament is utilizing NSDA Campus for our transition to an online tournament.
TOC BIDS: Florida Blue Key is thrilled to announce that we have retained our status as a qualifying competition for the National High School Tournament of Champions (TOC) in Public Forum (octafinalists), Congressional Debate (semi-finalists), and Lincoln Douglas (quarterfinalists). Florida Blue Key is also a bid tournament for the TOC in speech events.